Gamis's lips quirked into a half-mad grin at the words of the woman. He too takes a gentle step towards her, lowering his knife, but not sheathing it. "The way I see it, The Great Khan could have a knife through the Great Khan's throat before Gamis has an arrow through his. And Gamis has little to live for... So how can the Great Khan pursuade Gamis to be of use to her, instead of risking death again to gain supplies?"

This is the first time Gamis has talked in almost a year, and his voice is cracked and weary, but holds a defiant, yet strangely uncaring tone to it. He seems to have completely forgotten those within the building, though his ears do twitch at the sound of commotion inside, perhaps of an item falling to the ground...

"Strike, Gamis, and you die, reguardless of my living. If you make yourself useful to the Great Khan, however, if you act as her eyes and ears, you gain a share of her spoils." Even as she speaks, her rear foot slides backwards, and although her sword does not raise, she may or may not be ready to strike, potentially uncoiling like a serpent, her blade giving her a good foot of reach over the other.

"Think about it, Sharp Eyed Man. Would you like to sleep safe at night? With a full belly? Or would you like to die here, now?"

Luedast, notcing the man with a bead on him, "Put the gun down unless you intend to kill me, I'm not going to hurt anyone but I was unsure of what the other fellow was doing, I couldn't tell if he was one of us or a beast." Luedast cleaned himself off of the jam.

"Hey you want some, it's jam, strawberry, I think but it tastes pretty good." Luedast seemed unworried and careless even though the man was pointing the gun at his head. Luedast gathered some of the jam up and walked outside, and stumbled upon a woman and the wiry man. He noticed the archers on rooves and unslung his sniper rifle.

Gamis paused momentarily whilst he pondered over this. He does not sheathe his weapon, but he does take a step back and relax the grip on it, nodding once, "You speak in most aggravating logic. Very well, but take anything of mine, and I shall give you a blade through the stomach." He paused for a while at this, then abruptly broke in a most inopportune, maddened giggle, finding his own words amusing for some reason. He cuts his laughter short, however, as his keen hearing detects the footsteps of Luedast. The second the man exits the building, he would find that ornamental dagger swung up, pressed against the skin of his neck. Gamis's tone of voice changed to one intense, and perhaps even sane, as he spoke to Luedast, "Point a weapon at me again, fool, and I will gather your intestines for string."

"I'm not pointing it out you crazy but there's a couple of archers up there, that looked ready to turn you into a pincushion." Luedast said as he lowered the rifle. "Come now, there's probaly enough food in this city for all of us let's try to find some."

The laughter of the woman is now the arrogant, powerful laughter of the despot. "I knew there was a fool inside, yet I had yet to learn whom it was. Now, the Khan knows." The woman does not sheathe her blade, though she takes a step back from the man with the rifle, her body still coiled to strike.

"There are things of use within the shells of buildings, fool, but safe food is not one of them. Even the river here is bad, full of blood and s**t and piss. People go where they can eat. If not, they die. When men lay in wait for you with bow and arrow, and want you dead, you die." She chuckles darkly then, as she says, "If you are a fool, you die early. If you are smart, you die later. You are not even smart enough to walk out a different door than Sharp-Eye here."

"I'm alive enough right now am I not?" Luedast said, if this cow wants to underestimate me fine. Luedast let rage show on face as if the jeer insulted him. He kept the rifle at his shoulder ready to fire.

Mouse smiled to herself. Good. They were all leaving. Go way, silly peoples. Nothing here for you. She stayed in her corner though. There was still a man in the building, the first one who had come in. He should go away too.

Such marvelous weapons, such a waste. The woman turns half way, taking a step away, yet enough to keep the man with the guns in her periphial vision as she makes a sharp, cutting gesture with her left hand, at least partially obscured from vision: It's a gamble, but with as stupid as this man seems, they should be able to disable him without serious casualties..

Only two bows twang, two arrows hiss in tandem, low, vicious hipshots at Luedast, shots meant to cripple rather than kill. A split second later, hopefully as the man is still reacting, the woman spins, lashing out hard not with her blade, but high and around with her foot through the most likely path of dodging... Strike first, strike hard, these are the lessons she'd taken to heart long ago.

Luedast reacted like a tiger ready to spring, he crouched and rolled narrowly missing one arrow and letting the other arrow cut a furrow of blood in his side. Still in a crouch he fired two steady shots at the above archers. The gun barked and the shots thundered down the deserted city streets.

As the first shot goes off, it's archer is already under enough cover that the bullet fails to weave its way through the rails and steps.. and the second is hopeless, the man ducked behind several inches of concrete. Recovery for the swordswoman, meanwhile, is swift, a silvery blade hurtling down towards the back of the rifleman as he takes his shots. She's actually inside the arc that the gun would have to swing for it to fire at her while she strikes, meaning to shatter the other's spine.

Meanwhile, two more men with the curved bits of metal appear, though too far away from the doorway of the store just yet to pitch into the combat, one way or the other.

As Luedast crouched - still with a dagger pressed firmly against his neck - he would have no doubt shaved away an amount of flesh from his neck. Either way, Gamis simply drew back a pace or two from the two - May as well let this 'Khan' woman handle the man, anyway. Instead, Gamis made his way to the window the woman was peering into before, and glanced inside to study where the other man was. As his gaze scanned the room, however, it paused momentarily on one of the corners, peering at it intensly... Was that someone, there...?

Etienne hauled himself laboriously up the side of the crater where he remembered the Arc de Triomphe having been at some point in the past. Blown to bits by a small bomb, he recalled. He smiled. Well, so much for that triumph, eh?As he passed the curling, faded faces of old stars, which he had gathered and pinned up to make this particular section of rubble-strewn sidewalk more interesting, he said "Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour". He stopped by one, a pretty, dark-haired woman, and remembered her being American, so to her he said "'Alo, madame."Onward he went. Tap, tap went the PVC staff that he used as a walking stick. Of in the distance he heard a noise, a faint bark. Gunshots, he thought. More violence.Oh well. Nothing he could do about that. Gunshots were common enough, anyway, and maybe that would mean a few less marauders to hide from.He stepped into an alley between two leaning brick tenements, and nimbly skipped aside as a red block fell from above, smashing on the cracked pavement.Further, further, he went into the alley, until he came to an opening in the close-looming sides of the alley, the burned-out shell of a building with no back wall. The concrete floor of the structure was cracked to pieces, and yellow-green grass, waist-high, sprouted throughout. In the center, a small, wrinkle-barked tree stooped, tangled braches raking just above Etienne's head. Tiny orange-pink peaches, wrinkled and shriveled, hung from the branches, weighed them down.The old man picked one and bit into it, tasting the sweet peachy flavor and the odd crackle or tingle in it. Etienne supposed that the crackle-tingle meant that there was radiation in it. Like so many times before, oh well. Nothing he could do about that.Etienne climbed from his fruit source back into the ruinous alleyway and trod off in the direction of his home.

As soon as Luedast left, Gabriel broke away, headed straight for the back door. He knew something was happening in the front. Perhaps a fight is brewing, but Gabriel had no intention of sticking around to find out. Gabriel took a final look at the room, though there may of been something in the concealed compartment in the counter, Gabriel wouldn't stick around to find out. He turned to head for the door when he saw a shadow move, it took him several seconds to make out the shadow of the girl.

"A child...", a hundred different emotions went through Gabriels head, the one thing that upset him was seeing children such as these in such poverty and alone. A single emotion dominated his mind at that moment...anger.

Gabriel screamed out in a wail of anger. "d**n this world! Why does it have to be this way!" Gabriel's eyes wear rimmed with tears as he fell to his knees. d**nit....Why!?

Gabriel looked up to see the girl, the pain did not go down, but Gabriel took better control of himself. But before he could speak to the girl an explosion outside shook the ground he was on.

A grenade blew up on the side of the building a good ways away from the three people on the outside, blowing up a small part of the wall of the building, though dealing no real damage. Six men emerged from nearby roof-tops with heavy weaponry, shouting orders to all the people near the building. They were demanding unconditional surrender of everyone there, they also said who they were...Slarmanians.

Though bitter resentment, and thoughts of revenge crossed Gabriel's mind, his thoughts of the girl were greater than those of revenge.

Gabriel offered his hand to the girl, "Please, it isin't safe here, we need to leave. Come with me, I promise I will protect you and I won't harm you in any way."

Etienne wheeled around at the noise of the explosion. Bombs was what went through his mind first. But it was not loud enough for that. It had probably been caused by Slarmanians. They always seemed to bring explosions with them.The elder rested against his pole, listening for anything else that could mean that it was time to hide. Slarmanians, after all, were always bad news, and Etienne had had more than one close call with them.But there was no follow-up, and so Etienne continued on towards the tenement.

[OOC] Luke:in my post as you came OUT, I said I raised my dagger up to your throat. And I assumed if you could have seen the Khan and Gamis, you would have had to have come out of a door that was close enough for Gamis to do that. You didnt say anything against Gamis putting the dagger up, so I thought you had accepted it. You posted this for you exit: "gathered some of the jam up and walked outside, and stumbled upon a woman and the wiry man." Since you walked outside and stumbled onto us both, I gathered that was from a close enough exit - you never mentioned exactly which exit you went from.

I leave this OOC post separate, so it can be deleted when its all worked out [/OOC]

Mouse stamped her foot. This wasn't fair! The strange people were finally leaving, when some mean person knocked down a peice of the wall. It came down right on where she slept to, and probably some of her things were buried under it. And now, the man who had stayed inside knew she was there. Well, she couldn't fix it now, and she couldn't make the mean people go away. When mean people showed up, it was time for Mouse to move on. The strange man was mad at someone. Was he mad at Mouse? No, he was probably mad at the mean people. But he had yelled before the mean people broke her house... Never mind. The strange man was asking her to go with him. Why not? Her house was broken, and she couldn't stay here. If the strange man didn't like Mouse, she could run very fast.

OOC: But you didn't have a dagger against my neck man you threantened you would: "he would find that ornamental dagger swung up, pressed against the skin of his neck." You never actualy made the move of launching at me with the dagger.

Luke had forgoten the man with the dagger had pressed it against his neck now he felt warmth flow across his neck, he could still breath and blood didn't spout. The blade had cut up under his jaw bone and deflected off. Luke swung the rifle around like a club at the man's feet and did a sort of back sumersault on his back onto his feet behind the knife wielder.

[OOC] lol oooh, ok, you mis-interperated that, sorry. What I meant by that sentence was: The second Luedast exits, he finds the dagger pressed against his neck. I put the 'would' in there to give room for you to counter it in some way - to move back, or something of the like [/OOC]

OOC: One Archer is on a building top, flat roof, with about a foot of wall extending above the top of the roof. The other is on a rusted fire escape, hiding behind the solid panels of the steps. If you are shooting at them, I'm beside you, taking a swing with a big ol sword at your back.

Gabriel took the girl by her hand and led her to the back of the small store.

d**n...I hope they havn't surrounded the building...I'll have to check before I lead her out.

"Wait here, I'm going to make sure it's safe." Gabriel instructed as he made is way out the back door as cautious as he could be. He looked around, no one was back there. And he was almost certain there weren't any hidden people. Taking one final glance around, Gabriel head back in to get the girl.

"Come, I'll lead you away from these bad men." Gabriel said as he once again offered his hand, not wanting to scare the girl in any way.

One the front side of the building, no one was moving, so the soldiers of the Slarmanians shouted again, telling them all to lay down their weapons and surrender, but this time giving a count of 15 seconds.

Luedast felt the sword whoosh over his head as he rolled under it. A loud sot echoed from up the street, "d**n Slarmanians, listen lets stop this fight, we can solve our problem later but it's no use if were dead or worse." Asking the Khan and the knife wielder, he certainly wouldn't want to leave his back open to these two anyday but he would definately take them as opposed to Slamarians.

The woman's response is silence, even as she levels a half hearted kick at Luedast, before she steps well out of reach, to stare at the closest one of these 'soldiers', the apparent leader, the shouter. The madness is powerful in her eyes, as she glares at him, a dare to come down and try to match her in hand to hand. Hey eyes are clear, and disturbingly confident, even egotistical. She, at least, knows that she is perfect, undefeatable.

A dozen calculations fly through her mind, even as the saber is slowly sheathed. It's agonizing moments before she drops it as well, her blade clattering to the floor with a twist of her wrist and flick of her hand. She can't defend herself at range with it, and if it comes to it, her hands are likely just as deadly.

Meanwhile, those still outside the arc of easy vision from the rooftops begin to fall back, as silently as possible, obeying that twisting hand. Ambush later is the better choice, for her and her clan. If nothing else, she's visibly healthy, and, despite what is to here, a rather exotic complexion, relatively attractive... That might be enough to keep her alive for a time. "This is quite impossible, Sharp Eyes. Don't die, and distance yourself." The final part is almost hissed, as she says, "And don't close those eyes!"